No Longer Bound
Romans 7:1-6 NET.
1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. 3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.
The Apostle Paul considered preaching the gospel as the objective of his life – what he had been set apart for. He was eager to proclaim the gospel to everyone everywhere he went. When he sat down to write his epistle to the Romans, he wanted to explain why. That is why no matter what topic Paul gets on, it relates back to the gospel sooner or later. This is the message that Paul says he is not ashamed of. There were lots of things before his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road that Paul was ashamed of, but he was not ashamed of his decision to accept the gospel and live by it from then on.
Paul explains the gospel in the early chapters of the Book of Romans. He outlines the doctrine of justification by faith in the grace of God, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. He explains that there is no other way to be saved other than by faith in the grace of God. Paul himself is the perfect example of the statement made by Peter in Acts 4:12: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved.” Once Jesus came to Paul, Paul was only about Jesus and his gospel.
It would be safe to say that Paul was a committed man. That was true of Paul before he became a believer. When Paul was rounding up Christians to have them punished, persecuted, and imprisoned, he was also a committed man. He was busy harming the body of Christ with a sword in one hand and a Bible in the other.
That was why Paul needed to write the Book of Romans. He knew how easy it was for a person to do the devil’s work and be fully persuaded that he was following the Bible. He knew that Rome contained a large community of believers raised on the Old Testament law just like he was. So, in today’s text, he addresses those people.
The audience: those who know the law (1).
In Rome, there were many Gentiles, but there were also lots of Jews. Many proselytes had turned to Judaism before they heard the gospel and pledged their lives to Christ. Paul is addressing those people in today’s text. He is writing to people who know the law of Moses.
Earlier in his letter (chapter v2), Paul had addressed those who boast about knowing the law yet continue to dishonor God by transgressing it. Now, he has returned to talk to these people – those who claim to know God’s law. He knows that they will be tempted to live like he did. He had lived as an enemy of God even while he claimed to be defending God.
For Paul, a change had to happen. It did not matter how much he knew the law; the law itself would not turn him into a servant of God. He thought he was living by the law, but every aspect of his life was breaking the law and the heart of God.
The old bondage: the flesh attempting to obey the law, producing death (5).
Paul says that “when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” Just carrying around his Bible was not enough. Just knowing what God wants, as revealed in the Scriptures, was not sufficient. Sin had a grip on Paul’s life. It was producing death and using the law to bring death about. It’s like a criminal who steals a surgeon’s scalpel. That scalpel was designed to cut out disease and repair injury. But the thief uses the same scalpel to harm instead of heal.
So, what Paul is saying is that he was in bondage. Just having the Bible and knowing the law – was not enough for him to get out of that bondage. Something had to happen to set him free from that bondage. If it didn’t happen, the knowledge of the law would keep him in bondage.
That is why it is so important for Paul to address these people. They were people like him. They were Bible-toting, Scripture-memorizing, law-abiding sinners as he had been. But unless they experience the gospel, they will never experience the freedom that he now lives in.
Freedom through the cross: release from the law’s lordship (2,3-4,6).
Note that Paul talks about a married woman who is released from the law of marriage when her husband dies. When he dies, she is set free from that law. So, Paul tells these biblically knowledgeable Christians that when Christ died on the cross for them, they died to the law. Paul says that all believers have been released from the law because when Christ died for us, we died to what had controlled us when we were merely followers of the law.
Paul explains this new freedom Christians can walk in with the illustration of the married woman whose husband dies. Before her husband dies, she is bound to him by their covenant. After his death, she is released from the bondage. She is now free from the previous commitment and all its responsibilities.
Now, this is where some people have grossly misinterpreted Paul’s meaning. Paul is not saying that all Christians are released from the law as God’s instruction. He’s saying that because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we can live free from the law as a tool for sinning. We are free to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We are free from the bondage that made us sin, regardless of how much we studied the law.
The freedom Paul talks about here is only half of the equation. Once the death of Christ set us free on the cross, it remained for each believer to put their faith in that atonement and to begin walking in step with that new life. Paul explained that to the Romans by using the illustration of a second marriage.
Remarriage: joined to Christ for productive service (3-6).
This woman who became a widow did not remain a widow. She is joined to another man. She becomes a newlywed again. We, believers, are released from the bondage to the flesh to serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code. Unless we allow the Holy Spirit to take over, we are in danger of going back to living in bondage to the flesh.
The warning Paul gives the Romans here is significant for you and me today. We can walk with the Bible in our hands and still be walking according to the flesh. We can claim to be doing what God wants yet all the while be doing what we want. What we want and what the devil wants is the same thing. The law no longer binds us as the devil interpreted it. We are set free from that bondage.
However, just being set free is not enough. We have to be who the gospel says we are. We now have a new husband. We are the bride of Christ. We now have a new covenant. With it comes a new commitment. Self is not on the throne anymore. Christ is the Lord. We are joined to him.
We serve the same God that we thought we were serving before. But now, his truth is revealed to us clearly by his Holy Spirit inside us. The life we live is not a legalistic interpretation of the letter but a life empowered by the Spirit to know and accomplish our Father’s will. Anyone who has ever lived that life for a second can never be convinced to go back to the old life of bondage and control by the flesh.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus fully atoned for all your sins and set you free from your old life of trying to please God with your works. We are now free to serve in the new life of the Spirit. We are no longer bound!
For further study:
Abendroth, Mike, and S. Lewis Johnson. Discovering Romans: Spiritual Revival for the Soul. 2014. pp. 110-113.
Achtemeier, Paul J. Romans: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 2010. pp. 113-118.
Dewey Donald Kent et al. Walk through Romans: Based on the Sermon Outlines of Dr. Howard F. Sugden. Morris Publishing 2010. p. 66.
Erdman Charles R. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans: An Exposition. Westminster Press 1925. pp. 75-77.
Forrester E. J. A Righteousness of God for Unrighteous Men: Being an Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. George H. Doran 1926. pp. 140-145.
Hutchings N. W. Romance of Romans. 1st ed. Anniversary gift ed. Hearthstone Pub 1990. pp. 196-207.
MacGorman J. W. Romans 1 Corinthians. Broadman Press 1980. pp. 60-61.
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